


Une Valse Impromptu

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:37:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this inception_kink prompt, "Cobb and Eames don't like each other."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Une Valse Impromptu

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nolan’s.  
> Notes: Set post-movie, no spoilers. AU, in that Cobb and Eames don't get along.

  
  
"So . . . what're you wearing, darling?"  
  
Arthur frowns and mouths  _one moment_  to Cobb, who also frowns as Arthur puts a little distance between them for privacy's sake.  
  
"You know very well what I'm wearing, Mr. Eames," Arthur hisses into his Blackberry. "You watched me get dressed this morning."  
  
And had removed said outfit two and a half times, trying to get Arthur to spend the day in bed.  
  
Eames hums into the phone. "Yes, well, but you'll never guess what  _I'm_  wearing right now. Or maybe you will," he purrs, and Arthur shivers. He's quite probably wearing nothing but the lacy, pink silk thong Arthur had bought him. "Anyway, I was hoping for a little help finishing off."  
  
"I'm afraid I can't help you with that at this moment."  
  
"Oh, well, why-ever  _not_ , darling?" Eames asks, his voice gone husky. If Arthur closed his eyes right now, he could easily picture Eames laying on their bread, legs spread and in the air as he strokes himself through the pink silk with one hand and fingers himself with the other. . . .  
  
Arthur swallows, and very resolutely doesn't close his eyes. He doesn't so much as  _blink_. "Look, sweetheart, normally I'd be all for . . .  _this_ , but I'm with Cobb, right now, and—fuck, he doesn't look thrilled." Arthur doesn't even have to glance over at Cobb to confirm this.  
  
Eames sighs into the phone, loud and petulantly. "I didn't realize Cobb was in town." His normally warm bedroom voice has turned cold and almost prissy.  
  
"Well, I told you before I left that I had a job offer."  
  
"Right, but you didn't tell me it was with . . .  _him_."  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes. "This is really not the time for you to get jealous— “  
  
"I beg your  _pardon_ , Arthur, but I'm not  _jealous_. I simply can't abide the fact that that man exists in any way, shape, or form. It really has nothing to do with you."  
  
"Uh-huh," Arthur says without a shred of belief. And: "I see. That's a conundrum."  
  
"It certainly is," Eames insists, then huffs. "And we weren't talking about my alleged jealousy, but about you being a lying prick who clearly doesn't want to fuck me again any time this century."  
  
"Daniel, look—" Arthur lowers his voice. To the near baritone that normally drives Eames up the wall with needing to be fucked.  
  
This time, it drives Eames up the wall, alright. But not in the good way.  
  
"Do have fun with Cobb, Arthur-darling." That cold, prissy voice again. "And don't worry about me. I'll just be here, naked and randy, with my fingers up my arse, pretending I have a boyfriend who gives a damn about what I think. Ta-ta."  
  
" _Daniel_ —" Arthur tries again, but he's sweet-talking nothing but dial-tone.  
  
Gritting his teeth into what he hopes is a smile, Arthur turns back to Cobb, who really, really doesn't look too thrilled with him. Likely because he'd guessed who was on the phone. After all, who else would Arthur break up a meeting with Cobb to talk to?  
  
"Sorry about that. It was a minor emergency."  
  
Cobb makes a lemon-face. "Ah. I hope everything's okay."  
  
When Arthur blinks, he can quite clearly see Eames on his back, legs up in the air, groaning as he rocks back and forth onto slick fingers. His head is thrown back, and he's moaning in that desperate, guttural way he has. Probably moaning Arthur's name and pretending his fingers are Arthur's cock. Hell, as worked up as Eames gets, he's probably already coming, shooting all over his chest and face—maybe even into his mouth.  
  
Arthur  _keenly_  wishes he was there to kiss the taste out of Eames's mouth.  
  
"Uh, yeah. Eames's holding things down by himself," he says blandly, shifting his stance a little so his burgeoning hard-on is a little less obvious. But the friction just makes matters worse.  
  
Another lemon-face that ends with Cobb squinting. Arthur  _hates_  that squint. It makes him feel all of three years old. "And how is Eames?"  
  
Not blinking as if his life depends on it, and hoping Cobb doesn't pick that moment to look down, Arthur tries on another grimace-smile.  
  
"He's a trooper. He sends his regards."  
  


*

  
  
Eames throws his head back, his mouth open and eyes screwed tight-shut as he rides Arthur's cock hard and fast.  
  
"Fuck, yeah," Arthur groans, his hands clenching on Eames's thighs as he rocks upward to meet every downward cant of Eames's hips. "You feel so fucking tight around me, baby. Gonna fuck you wide open, and fill you up with my big, hard—"  
  
The phone rings, startling them both. Eames, in fact, nearly falls off.  
  
"Ignore it," Arthur says, steadying him, and Eames nods, grinning.  
  
"Right. And where were we? Ah, right, you were going to fill me with something. . . ."  
  
Arthur smirks. "Already filling you with something. Gonna fill you with even more." Arthur bucks up once, hard, and Eames's eyes roll back into his head. Muscles clench around Arthur's cock and he hopes he never comes.  
  
It's just that good.  
  
Eventually the phone stops ringing.  
  
Unfortunately, that when Arthur's Blackberry  _starts_.  
  
And  _mother of God_ , it's  _Cobb's_  ring.  
  
Not the ringtone of Arthur's set for Cobb's home phone ("Yellow Submarine"), but the one from the emergency satellite phone Cobb uses to pass on important, extra-legal information ("Baby Got Back").  
  
"Arthur," Eames pants, his eyes hot, horny, and  _murderous_. "Darling, if you answer that phone, I'll castrate you, and turn your cock into a dildo. Then I'll make you watch me fuck myself with it."  
  
And for some reason, instead of making Arthur wilt, that only makes him harder.  
  
Running his hands soothingly up and down Eames's thighs, he sits up to kiss his boyfriend lingeringly. Eames's tongue fucks determinedly into his mouth, his hands hot and damp on Arthur's chest.  
  
"I promise, I'll make it quick, babe," Arthur murmurs on Eames's lips and grabs for the Blackberry that’s about to vibrate off the nightstand, ignoring Eames's profuse swearing.  
  
“What’s up, Cobb?”  
  
“You weren’t picking up your phone.”  
  
“Ah. Ah-ha-ha. No, yeah, I didn’t hear it ring. What’s uh-unhhhh!”  
  
Eames has brought every muscle in his body, it feels like, to bear on Arthur's sensitized cock at just that moment. He even pulls Arthur’s free hand to his cock.  
  
Dead silence on Cobb's end. Then:  
  
"Am I interrupting something, Arthur?"  
  
Cobb's too calm tone says he knows good and well he's interrupting  _something_ , but Arthur feels the need to lie, anyway. He yanks his hand away from Eames’s cock and gets glared at.  
  
This is not good.  
  
"I-interrupting? No, no, of course no— _ow_! Goddamnit, Eames!" Arthur exclaims when Eames viciously gives him a double purple-nurple.  
  
"Twat," Eames says venomously, and Arthur can't tell if Eames means him, or Cobb. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to know.  
  
"Did Eames just call you a  _twat_?" Cobb demands, and Arthur groans as Eames eases off him, muttering, and flops down on the bed next to him.  
  
"Uh, no. He said  _what?_  As in,  _what's Cobb doing calling at this crazy-late hour?_  Ha-ha." Arthur stares at his dick, still sticking up like a flesh-colored flagpole. Then he looks at Eames, who's got a pissed-ish look on his face. But then he smiles that dangerous, slightly cruel smile that never bodes well for Arthur.  
  
Eames starts stroking himself slowly, hard, moaning and generally making an exhibition of himself. Arthur sighs, knowing Cobb can probably hear every moan and whimper Eames makes.  
  
He closes his eyes, all the better to concentrate on Cobb, and getting Cobb off the phone. "So, uh, what  _is_  Cobb doing calling at this hour, buddy?"  
  
Cobb sniffs at the  _buddy_. "I was just calling to make sure you got my email about James's birthday party."  
  
"You mean the one inviting me, that I already RSVP'ed to?" Arthur opens his eyes just in time to see Eames licking pre-come off his fingers. They both shiver, and Arthur can’t be blamed for maybe indulging in just a little bit of eye-fucking. With a boyfriend like Eames, it’s a hazard of the relationship.  
  
"No, I mean the  _second_  email, saying that the party's been moved from 12pm, to 12:30pm, due to scheduling conflicts with that clown-magician I hired."  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes, or tries to. They won't leave Eames's, which are dark and very, very wanton. "No, Cobb, I didn't get the email. When'd you send it?"  
  
"Ten minutes ago."  
  
"Oh, fucking  _fuck_!" Eames exclaims loudly, suddenly coming copiously all over himself, and Arthur. Their gazes never break—at least not until orgasm forces Eames’s eyes shut.  
  
When he finishes coming with a few more groans and whimpers there’s dead silence on Cobb's end. Then on Arthur's, too. Well, silence except for Eames's panting. He's also smirking like a man who just won an argument.  
  
Cobb clears his throat, and Arthur can practically hear the squinting. “Uh. Was that Eames? Did he just—“  
  
“No. No, he did not.”  
  
“Oh, yes, I  _did_ ,” Eames says loudly and proudly then he snatches the Blackberry from Arthur, who squawks indignantly. Arthur tries and fails to get it back because Eames has rolled out of bed and to his feet, already talking.  
  
"Hello, Cobb? Yes, it's Eames. And you just heard me give your Pointman a bloody pearl necklace. Hope you enjoyed that, you cock-blocking  _twat_."  
  
Eames clicks the  _end_  button then tosses the phone at Arthur, who fumbles it.  
  
"I'm going to take a shower, darling. Don't wait up," he says blithely, strolling off toward the bathroom.  
  
Arthur, dick still at attention, groans and flops back into the pillows.  
  


*

  
  
“Arthur! Daniel!”  
  
Ariadne launches herself at them, throwing surprisingly strong arms around them both and hugging them to within an inch of their lives.  
  
“Hello, love,” Eames says, picking her up and carefully swinging her around. She giggles like a little girl, her eyes sparkling and merry.  
  
“It’s so good to see you two,” she says when Eames puts her down. Then she motions them into the house. “You’re right on time. Dom was afraid you’d be late and miss the cake. It looks  _so_ good.”  
  
Following her down the hall Arthur and Eames share a glance and a smile. Since the pregnancy, Ariadne’s sweet tooth has turned into a whole set of teeth, and the more sugar dessert has, the more she salivates over it.  
  
Once in the livingroom, Eames puts a hand on her gently rounded stomach. “And how’s the littlest Cobb doing?”  
  
Ariadne smiles fondly and covers Eames’s hand with her own. “He’s already started kicking—especially when I’m trying to sleep. He’s lucky  _I_  don’t try to do the same when  _he’s_  asleep.”  
  
Eames pulls Ariadne into an impromptu waltz—something he never does with Arthur, who feels a twinge of something that’d be jealousy if he weren’t so enlightened—and dips her until she giggles again. “Well, I could give him the boot, if you’d like. It’s never too young to learn the lad some manners.”  
  
“Oh, stop.” Ariadne swats Eames as he pulls her effortlessly back up out of a deep dip. He kisses her forehead, and murmurs something that makes her snort laughter and—whatever it is—makes Arthur feel another twinge of that  _something_. “Daniel,  _stop_!”  
  
“Yes, please stop threatening my unborn child with a beat-down.” Cobb’s voice comes from the kitchen doorway, somewhat drily. “And while you’re at it, please stop mauling my wife.”  
  
Eames makes a face and Ariadne swats his arm again. He lets her up with all the care and support that Cobb would show her, if Cobb were the waltzing type.  
  
“Good to see you, Arthur,” Cobb says, coming over to shake Arthur’s hand. “Daniel.”  
  
“Dominic.”  
  
The two don’t shake, merely stare each other over then stare each other down.  
  
Ariadne and Arthur exchange a stare of their own, and Arthur nods once. He takes Eames’s arm and pulls him around so they’re only looking at each other. He can only hope Ariadne’s doing the same.  
  
“Hey,” he says, and Eames scowls.  
  
“Hey, yourself.”  
  
“Look, can we not do this today?” Arthur asks quietly, wrapping his arms around Eames’s waist. “It’s my godson’s birthday, and I just want to have some cake and have some fun without worrying if my Extractor and my boyfriend are going to pull guns on each other.”  
  
“Darling!” Eames goes for offended shock, but falls far, far short. “You know I left my guns home.”  
  
“I happen to know you have my Derringer in an ankle holster, not to mention my Desert Eagle in the glove-box of the rental.”  
  
Eames shrugs, grinning sheepishly. “I said I left  _my_  guns home. Didn’t say a word about yours.”  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”  
  
“Must be the crippingly good sex.”  
  
“Must be.”  
  
“Speaking of,” Eames murmurs huskily. “I’m lucky to be walking after last night. Not to mention this morning.”  
  
Arthur smirks. “And let’s not even get into what I’m gonna do to you later.”  
  
“Oh, do  _let’s_  get into it, darling. In detail,” Eames purrs.  
  
Someone clears their throat behind them, and Arthur’s willing to bet his fortune that it’s Cobb.  
  
Yep. It’s Cobb. The man has ears like a bat.  
  
“Ignore him, darling.  _I_  do.” Eames leans back a little, smirking. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes: your cock, my arse, and the pounding, thereof.”  
  
“Eames!” Arthur and Cobb say at the same time. Then: “Shut  _up_!”  
  
Ariadne elbows Cobb, her eyes ping-ponging back and forth between Arthur and Eames. “Actually, I could stand to hear a little more,” she says hopefully.  
  


*

  
  
James and Phillippa are thrilled to see their Uncle Arthur and Uncle Daniel.  
  
But once the other children start to arrive, the luster wears off, and they abandon their parents and their uncles to go running around through the house, then outside.  
  
An hour into the party, after everyone’s arrived, Cobb, Ariadne, and a few other parents shoo the kids outside for the cake and presents. Arthur and Eames’s present—a model train set—is by far the largest, and seemingly the most well received. James and his friends beg Cobb to set it up in the livingroom immediately.  
  
“Told you he’d love it, darling,” Eames whispers, kissing Arthur briefly. Arthur returns it a little less briefly. They both taste like buttercream and chocolate.  
  
“You did, indeed, Mr. Eames.”  
  
The clown-magician, The Amazing Mr. Jingles, shows up an hour late, but the kids are too busy playing with the train set to notice. Cobb, however, notices, and hovers near the phone with a thunderous expression on his face until Ariadne draws him back into the party.  
  
After a few minutes surrounded by screaming, excited kids, hopped up on sugar and new toys, Cobb looks like a man in his element, laughing and playing with no traces of self-consciousness or the awkwardness he’d shown around the children’s parents. He looks happier than Arthur’s seen him since before Mal’s death.  
  
“Well. He’s surprisingly good with aknle-biters,” Eames notes, watching Cobb rearrange some of the buildings and tracks that came with the train set. James is bouncing up and down, saying they should run the train over one of Phillippa’s Bratz doll (which he’s currently holding hostage by it’s immaculate hair). Phillippa’s pretending she doesn’t care, but she snatches her doll away from James when his attention wavers. “Maybe he’s not  _so_  bad.”  
  
“See?” Arthur takes Eames’s arm, and tugs him out of the livingroom and down the hall, past the stairs. “You two would  _love_  each other if you would give each other the benefit of the doubt.”  
  
“I wouldn’t go  _that_  far,” Eames says wryly, then looks around them at the photos that adorn the hallway. Many of them are of Mal and the children, but even more of them are of Ariadne and the children. It’d taken Phillippa a while to warm up to Ariadne, but James had taken to her immediately. Incidentally, neither child can wait for the appearance of their new brother. “Speaking of going far—to where are you dragging me?”  
  
“The guest bathroom,” Arthur says simply. And indeed, he pulls Eames into a small, neat bathroom with blue tiling and matching hand towels.  
  
“What—?” Eames begins, but Arthur’s shoving him against the door and dropping to his knees, holding Eames’s gaze from underneath his lashes.  
  
“Oh,” Eames says, grinning and leaning his head back against the door as Arthur unzips his green and purple striped pants. “Do carry on, then.”  
  
Arthur  _hmms_ , pulling the pants down to mid thigh and nuzzling lacy pink silk that’s slightly distended by Eames’s hardening cock. “Fuck, you’re wearing the thong.”  
  
“Mm, now what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t plan ahead?”  
  
Arthur quirks an eyebrow and mouths Eames through the fabric. “You  _planned_  to get blown at my godson’s birthday party? I don’t know whether I’m turned on, or disturbed.”  
  
Eames groans happily as Arthur pulls down the thong just enough to bare Eames’s cock. He takes it in hand and kisses the tip, teasing it with his tongue. Eames’s breath catches, and he massages the back of Arthur’s neck encouragingly.  
  
“Let me make up your mind for you, then.” Eames rocks his hips gently forward, sliding past Arthur’s lips. . . .  
  
By the time they come out onto the patio, holding hands and smiling, The Amazing Mr. Jingles is already well into his act, which half the children are apparently suffering through. The other half seem to be paying him no mind at all, talking to friends and running around.  
  
“Voila!” the clown-magician exclaims, pulling a bouquet of fake flowers seemingly out of nowhere. Ariadne’s the only one who claps, shoving her plate of cake at Cobb to do so.  
  
“Good Lord, everyone looks bored off their arses,” Eames whispers in Arthur’s ear. “Aren’t you glad I, er, planned ahead?”  
  
“Apparently not as glad as you are,” Arthur replies, adding his own late applause to Ariadne’s. The Amazing Mr. Jingles bows to them both then goes into his next bit, which involves eight red balloons and a caged pigeon.  
  
Cobb shakes his head, appearing to be disappointed. Ariadne elbows him again, and takes her cake back.  
  
In the end, The Amazing Mr. Jingles accidentally pops three balloons and the startled pigeon launches itself off the clown-magician’s shoulder, flapping around the yard. For the first time, the children laugh, pointing and waving. The Amazing Mr. Jingles chases after his bird futilely, as it takes off skyward.  
  
“If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why, can’t I?” Eames wonders with a bored sigh as he and Arthur watch the lucky pigeon wing its way toward freedom.  
  


*

  
  
The rest of the party goes off without a hitch once The Amazing Mr. Jingles leaves, with a generous tip from Ariadne.  
  
“You really were—amazing, Mr. Jingles,” she says, showing him to the door. Mr. Jingles, an older man with too much greasepaint and not enough talent, takes her hand and kisses it.  
  
“You’re too kind, young lady,” he says in a froggy sort of Henry Kissinger-baritone. He turns to Cobb and holds out his hand for shaking. “Your wife is far too kind.”  
  
“I know,” Cobb and Eames say at the same time. Then they look at each other with matching grimaces of surprise and distaste.  
  
Arthur and Ariadne also share a glance before she ushers Mr. Jingles out the door, thanking him once again.  
  


*

  
  
The party begins to wind down around five, with parents and children making their exits.  
  
James and a few diehard friends are playing Xbox, and Phillippa and her friends are up in Phillippa’s room, playing . . . whatever it is little girls play at, these days.  
  
Cobb and Eames are arguing about the best way to break down the train set so it can be moved to the basement, where there’s more room. Cobb is all for taking the whole thing apart and rebuilding it. Eames is insisting that the whole kit and kaboodle can be transported in two trips, if left mostly together.  
  
“Right. And when some of the movable parts fall off, we can both trip on them, and fall down the stairs and break our necks.” Cobb says sarcastically. Eames crosses his arms.  
  
“Didn’t realize you were as clumsy as all that, Cobb,” he returns with a lightness of tone that Cobb no doubt finds infuriating.  
  
“You  _would_  think caution was clumsiness, as always.”  
  
“And  _you’d_  make a mountain out of a molehill, as always.”  
  
“They’re like teenagers, aren’t they,” Ariadne muses, bringing Arthur a glass of red wine. He takes it gratefully, watching her sip her own cranberry juice. “All pissing contests and testosterone.”  
  
“Mm.” Arthur takes a healthy sip of his wine.  
  
“Why do we put up with them, again?”  
  
“I dunno about you, but the sex definitely has a lot to do with it.”  
  
“There is that,” Ariadne agrees wistfully, ogling Cobb’s ass as he bends over to pick up a small building that’d tumbled off the set. He shows it to Eames with a triumphant smile.  
  
“Moving. Part!” he says as if proving a point.  
  
“Oh, you and your moving parts can sod off,” Eames scoffs dismissively.  
  
“What’re you, twelve?” Cobb demands, putting his hands on his hips. He looks vaguely like Yul Brenner.  
  
“God, I am gonna  _climb all over that_ , tonight,” Ariadne breathes with so much anticipation, Arthur laughs.  
  
“Down girl. I take it those pregnancy hormones are treating you right?”  
  
“Hey, Mister, don’t act like I’m the only one who can’t get enough. I noticed you and Eames disappeared from the party for, like, forty-five minutes.” She looks up at him with a squint that makes her look eerily like her husband. Arthur clears his throat and tries not to grin like an idiot.  
  
“Well. . . .”  
  
“As long as it wasn’t on my bed, it’s fine. But you’ve gotta tell me—“ Ariadne leans in to whisper, her eyes shining. “Is he as good a lover as he is a dancer?”  
  
“Even better,” Arthur says, without pause, pasting on a smirk that he hopes speaks volumes. Or at least speaks enough that Ariadne doesn’t require further details. Not that Arthur’s shy about his and Eames’s sex-life—there’d be no point, since he knows good and well that Ariadne and Eames compare notes over the phone on a weekly basis—but the dancing-thing definitely makes him a little tetchy.  
  
Ariadne smiles, sipping more cranberry juice. “You two are so perfect together, so into each other. Sometimes I get jealous. And it’s weird, because—I actually used to be jealous of the time you and  _Dom_  spent together,” she admits, sounding mildly embarrassed.  
  
“You were?”  
  
Ariadne nods. “You guys’ve known each other for so long, and have spent so much time working together—still spend so much time together, that I thought, well.” She falls silent, glancing at Cobb again.  
  
“Thought what?” Arthur asks, frowning. Ariadne takes his arm and squeezes it reassuringly.  
  
“Nothing. Never mind. But every time I see you and  _Eames_  together, I get how in love you guys are, how right you are for each other.” That wistfulness is in her voice again. “What you guys have is beautiful. And rare. I don’t think you realize  _how_  rare. So take care of it, okay?”  
  
Nodding, Arthur looks over at Eames, who’s helping Cobb dismantle the train set piece by piece, with many a sigh. As if he senses Arthur watching him, he glances over, and winks, rolling his eyes at an oblivious Cobb. Arthur chuckles, rolling his own eyes.  
  
It suddenly hits home that he  _hasn’t_  ever stopped to think about his and Eames’s relationship. At least not in terms of how it compares to what other couples have, and how other couples view them.  
  
He hasn’t stopped to think at all, really—hasn’t noticed what Ariadne terms the “beauty” or “rarity” of what they have. Hasn’t noticed or taken much in the way of care . . . though he suspects maybe Eames has been doing both for sometime, and that maybe . . . maybe he feels like he’s the only one in their relationship who’s doing so.  
  
In light of that, Arthur begins to understand why Eames gets so possessive and insecure whenever Cobb enters the picture. And when he remembers how he’d felt seeing Eames dance with Ariadne, suddenly Eames’s possessiveness and insecurity make a lot more sense.  
  
  


*

  
  
“Why don’t you ever dance with me?”  
  
All the children have long since gone home, and James and Phillippa are in the livingroom playing with James’s many new toys. The train set has been reassembled in the basement with much bickering between Cobb and Eames.  
  
Now, Ariadne and Cobb are clearing up and cleaning, having refused Arthur’s offer of help.   
  
So he and Eames are alone on the patio, watching the sunset slowly paint the air around them a golden-orange.  
  
Eames looks over at Arthur across the patio table. Between them are the remains of cake, ice cream, and many bowls of potato chips. Arthur picks at his third slice of cake just to have something to do while he waits for an answer.  
  
“How’s that, darling?”  
  
Flushing but squaring his shoulders, Arthur does his best to look nonchalant. “You’ll dance with anyone, Daniel—Phillippa, Ariadne—once I even saw you dance with Yusuf. So what am I? Chopped liver?”  
  
After a few seconds of Eames staring at him in that  _way_ , that means Arthur’s getting read and studied, Eames smiles.  
  
“Do you want to dance with me, Mr. Michalska?”  
  
Flustered, Arthur huffs and crosses his arms. “No. Not really. It’s just the principle of the thing, Mr. Eames. You’ll dance with anyone—“  
  
“Except Cobb.”  
  
Arthur rolls his eyes. “But you never dance with  _me_. And I . . . guess I’d like to know why.”  
  
Eames’s eyebrows slowly drift halfway to his hairline. “Honestly? Because you don’t seem likely to say yes.”  
  
“Well, maybe I would if you asked me.” Arthur looks away from Eames’s penetrating gaze. “Or you could just pull an Astaire and sweep me across a dance floor, now and then.”  
  
“Hmm.” Eames gets up and prowls around the table toward him looking so intent Arthur might have taken a step back if he’d been standing. As it is, he winds up pulled out of his chair and flush against his boyfriend, who starts swaying them to music only he can hear. “Would that make you Ginger Rogers, then?”  
  
“Oh, shut up.” Arthur flushes again, but lets Eames move him to a nonexistent beat. After his third time stepping on Eames’s foot in under a minute, Arthur swears and ceases his graceless shuffling, trying to pull out of Eames’s arms, but Eames is having none of it, tightening his hands on Arthur’s waist and around his hand, respectively.  
  
“I’m no good at this, babe,” Arthur grumbles, looking down at Eames’s now scuffed shoes. If there’s laughter in Eames’s eyes, he simply doesn’t want to see it. “I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but—“  
  
“Darling.” Eames lets go of Arthur’s hand to tip his chin up till their eyes meet. His face is solemn, and there isn’t any amusement to be seen anywhere. When he smiles, it’s tender and fond. The kind of smile that says,  _You silly git, I love you_. “First, it might help if you let  _me_  lead. Second, it might also help if you would  _relax_  just a bit. No one’s watching us, or judging you. So let go, and . . .  _move with me_.”  
  
“I . . . I don’t know how, Daniel,” Arthur admits, and Eames has the grace to at least look surprised. “I’ve never done this before.”  
  
“Not even at prom?”  
  
“I didn’t go to my prom.”  
  
“Hmm . . . sounds like the prom’s loss.” Eames takes Arthur’s hand again, and nods. “Right. Just try to move with me. Our bodies will take care of the rest. Sort of like in the bedroom.”  
  
Arthur finds himself almost smiling. “Except when we have sex,  _I_  lead.”  
  
“If it makes you feel better to think that, go right ahead.”  
  
“I don’t appreciate your smugness, Mr. Eames.”  
  
“You  _love_  my smugness, darling.”  
  
“I love  _you_.”  
  
Eames’s whole face lights up. It always does when Arthur says the l-word, which—he’s surprised to realize—he doesn’t say nearly often enough.  
  
Making a promise to say it more often, he leans in to kiss Eames, who returns it softly and slowly. Arthur’s hand leaves Eames’s arm to cup his face, brushing his thumb across Eames’s cheek.  
  
“I love you,” he says again, his voice rough and low. “Maybe I don’t tell you as often as I should, or show you like I should, but  _I love you._  No one but you. I will never let  _anything_  come between us.”  
  
Eames holds him tighter, leaning their foreheads together.  
  
“I love you, too, darling,” he whispers then chuckles. “And don’t look now, Arthur, but we’re dancing.”  
  
Arthur immediately tenses up, trying to look down at his feet, but Eames squeezes his hand. “Ah-ah, no looking down, love. Only look at me.”  
  
“So having your feet stepped on is a kink for you?”  
  
“We’ve been turning about the patio for nearly five minutes and you haven’t stepped on my feet once, so—just  _dance_ ,” Eames commands, his eyes shining. Arthur flushes again, and opens his mouth to protest . . . but in the end he nods and lets Eames lead him around the patio.  
  
Ariadne and Cobb find them still at it, a half hour later.  
  
“Uh-oh. The chief of the fun-police has arrived,” Eames murmurs, and Arthur purposely steps on his foot. “Ouch!”  
  
“Could you at least  _try_  to like him?”  
  
Eames groans, and glances over at Cobb, who’s not watching them, for once. He is, in fact, staring at his wife, and the look on his face is once more unselfconscious and completely enrapt.  
  
He holds his hand out to her.  
  
Clearly surprised, Ariadne takes it, lets herself be lead out onto the patio and pulled just a wee bit clumsily into a jerky sort of waltz. At first, she seems just as bad at it as Arthur had been. But after she stops staring at her feet and starts looking into Cobb’s eyes, her steps even out and match his flawlessly. Even though he’s much taller than her, their bodies seem to be made for one another. They move like one person, each half inseparable from the other.  
  
 _Is that how Eames and I look?_  Arthur wonders, smiling, and returning his own gaze to Eames’s, only to be met by a scowl.  
  
“What?” Arthur asks, puzzled. “They’re stupidly in love with each other, and they look good together. Like they were made for each other. Kinda like us.”  
  
“That they do,” Eames agrees, with a trace of something Arthur could almost swear was bitterness. “But Cobb’s your best friend in the whole world. Every moment he’s with Ari, or you’re with me, is a moment you two don’t have together.”   
  
Arthur shakes his head. “Cobb’s not my best friend, Daniel.  _You_  are. And so what if he and I can’t spend every waking moment together? Every moment I’m not with him, I get to spend with you, and I must say . . . we have some pretty damn awesome moments.” Arthur raises his eyebrows, pressing his body against Eames’s for a moment. Eames grins, some of the tension in his face and shoulders relaxing infinitesimally.  
  
“This is true.”  
  
They whirl around in silence that’s only broken occasionally by Ariadne’s giggles, and Cobb’s self-deprecating laughs. He twirls her only a little awkwardly, then dips her, kissing her when he does.  
  
“Okay, if he can put that kind of smile on our girl's face, he’s  _not_  so bad, after all,” Eames grudgingly admits, and Arthur gasps when he's twirled him so naturally, it’s over before he has time to get nervous, or even object.  
  
“Hmm . . . do I sense a hint of rapproachment in the air?” he asks breathlessly, staring into Eames's grey eyes and feeling pretty damned enrapt, himself.  
  
“Oh, now, let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves,” Eames snorts, dipping Arthur low and kissing the tip of his nose. “Baby steps, my dove. Baby steps.”


End file.
